IN THE HEMLOCKS 49 



one. Here a partridge has set its foot; there, a 

 woodcock ; here, a squirrel or mink ; there, a skunk ; 

 there, a fox. What a clear, nervous track reynard 

 makes! how easy to distinguish it from that of a 

 little dog, it is so sharply cut and defined ! A 

 dog's track is coarse and clumsy beside it. There 

 is as much wildness in the track of an animal as in 

 its voice. Is a deer's track like a sheep's or a 

 goat's? What winged-footed fleetness and agility 

 may be inferred from the sharp, braided track of 

 the gray squirrel upon the new snow! Ah! in 

 nature is the best discipline. How wood-life sharp- 

 ens the senses, giving a new power to the eye, the 

 ear, the nose! And are not the rarest and most 

 exquisite songsters wood-birds ? 



Everywhere in these solitudes I am greeted with 

 the pensive, almost pathetic note of the wood 

 pewee. The pewees are the true flycatchers, and 

 are easily identified. They are very characteristic 

 birds, have strong family traits and pugnacious dis- 

 positions. They are the least attractive or elegant 

 birds of our fields or forest. Sharp-shouldered, 

 big-headed, short-legged, of no particular color, of 

 little elegance in flight or movement, with a dis- 

 agreeable flirt of the tail, always quarreling with 

 their neighbors and with one another, no birds are 

 so little calculated to excite pleasurable emotions in 

 the beholder, or to become objects of human inter- 

 est and affection. The kingbird is the best dressed 

 member of the family, but he is a braggart; and, 

 though always snubbing his neighbors, is an arrant 



